v\-\  \^>  O- 

Hjomatt’s  |)oarb  of  missions. 


POSSIBILITIES 

OF 

WORK 

IN 

OUR  AUXILIARIES. 


ALICE  M.  KYLE. 


Boston : 

Frank  Wood,  Printer,  352  Washington  Street. 
1894. 


THEN  we  touch  upon  a  topic  like  this,  we 


’  ’  have  come  to  the  very  heart  of  tilings, 
for  in  our  auxiliaries  we  find  the  seat  of  life, — 
the  impulse  to  warm,  healthful,  vital  service, 
which  sends  the  current  of  life-giving  force 
through  every  artery  of  our  body  politic.  We 
do  not  say  of  our  auxiliaries,  “  You  are  a  part 
of  the  Woman’s  Board,”  simply.  We  say, 
■“You  are  the  Woman’s  Board.” 

The  questions  that  concern  work  in  auxilia¬ 
ries  become  at  once,  therefore,  of  the  most 
practical  interest  to  us  all.  To  quote  from  an 
admirable  paper  read  at  a  recent  meeting  of 
one  of  our  Branches:  “There  are  two  ques¬ 
tions  that  are  ever  seeking  for  an  answer, 
‘  How  shall  we  increase  the  interest  in  our 
auxiliary  meetings?’  and,  ‘  How  shall  we  raise 
a  little  more  money  this  year  than  we  did 
last  ?  ’  ”  The  writer  of  this  paper  went  on  to 
say:  “  I  cannot  answer  these  questions.  If  I 
could  I  should  not  be  here  to-day,  for  I  should 
have  been  offered  long  ago  the  position  of 
Secretary  Extraordinary  to  the  Woman’s 
Board,  and  should  have  been  sent  through  the 
country  to  answer  them  in  the  various  aux¬ 
iliaries.” 


(2) 


The  office  of  Secretary  Extraordinary  is  still 
vacant,  and  these  questions  are  still  confront¬ 
ing  the  earnest  women  who  love  the  coming 
kingdom  of  our  God,  and  who  are  seeking 
prayerfully,  persistently,  and  hopefully,  a  solu¬ 
tion  of  these  and  kindred  problems.  In  the 
suggestions  offered  you  at  this  time  there  is 
no  claim  to  originality.  There  has  been 
simply  a  gathering  up  of  various  thoughts  and 
methods  out  of  the  experiences  of  some  wise- 
liearted  women,  who  have  been  for  many 
years  familiar  with  the  work  of  sustaining 
auxiliary  meetings  in  the  face  of  variety  of 
difficulties  and  discouragements.  Yet  with 
what  a  grand  measure  of  success  this  has  been 
done,  let  the  record  of  this  Woman’s  Board 
these  twenty-seven  years  bear  eloquent  witness. 

In  the  opening  sentence  of  the  report  of  the 
Home  Secretary  of  the  American  Board,  there 
is  a  striking  phrase:  “The  first  duty  of  the 
architect  is  to  think  in  shadow.”  There  is,  in 
these  words,  a  marvelous  suggestiveness.  By 
and  by  there  will  be  a  fair  and  perfect  temple 
of  God,  as  the  living  stones,  out  of  all  nations, 
and  people,  and  kindred,  and  tongues,  are 
built  up  a  spiritual  house.  But  for  the  present 
we  work  and  think  in  shadow,  and  we  need  of¬ 
ten  to  behold  in  vision  the  thing  which  shall  be. 

The  difficulties  of  our  work  are  different, 
however,  in  different  places. 

The  small,  struggling  missionary  society  in 
a  country  church,  where  the  people  are  scat- 


(3) 


tered ;  where  for  nine  months  in  the  year  the 
condition  of  the  roads  is  one  of  the  first  con¬ 
siderations  regarding  any  kind  of  a  gathering; 
where  the  people  handle  very  little  money,  — 
here  is  one  set  of  difficulties.  People  living 
in  such  communities  are  very  apt  to  think 
that  in  large  towns  or  cities  where  there  are 
good  sidewalks,  a  comfortable  church  parlor, 
and  “plenty  of  workers,”  it  must  be  a  very 
easy  matter  to  have  large  and  interesting 
meetings,  and  a  full  treasury,  —  especially 
where  there  is  the  impulse  to  generous  giving 
which  comes  from  frequent  touch  with  our 
real  live  missionaries — God  bless  them !  —  and 
with  a  mine  of  information  at  hand  in  mis¬ 
sionary  libraries.  Our  friends  in  the  city 
dwell  upon  the  leisure  of  the  long  winter 
evenings  in  the  country,  and  the  fewer  social 
and  religious  engagements  of  the  people,  and, 
it  is  true,  they  overlook  some  of  the  obstacles 
in  the  work  of  a  village  society.  Yet  dwellers 
in  the  city  must  crave  some  much-needed 
sympathv  because  of  the  multiplicity  of  or¬ 
ganizations,  the  almost  distracting  variety  of 
urgent  and  deserving  claims  upon  purse,  time, 
and  strength  with  which  those  who  work  in 
city  churches  are  increasingly  conscious. 

But,  after  all,  many  of  our  difficulties  are 
common  to  all,  for  human  nature  is  every¬ 
where  the  same.  There  would  seem  to  be 
three  troublesome  elements  in  our  work.  If 
you  were  asked  to  name  them,  would  not  the 

(4) 


reply  be  sadly  unanimous?  Would  you  not 
say,  and  say  truly :  — 

First,  That  there  is  too  little  comprehen¬ 
sion  of  our  work,  of  its  claims  and  of  its 
pressing  needs,  among  the  average  women  of 
our  churches ; 

Second,  That  there  is  too  little  expression 
of  the  spirit  of  prayer  among  the  women  who 
honestly  love  the  work,  and  are  trying  to 
shoulder  its  burdens;  and, 

Third,  That  there  is  too  little,  far  too  little, 
of  a  self-denying,  systematic  liberality  among 
the  women  who  so  largely  make  up  the  mem¬ 
bership  of  our  Congregational  churches.  Is 
it  not  your  experience,  that  the  few  give  a 
great  deal,  while  the  many  give  nothing,  or 
very  little? 

Dr.  Richard’s  figures,  as  given  at  Madison, 
are  worthy  of  earnest  thought  and  attention. 
He  says :  1  ‘  When  even  in  Massachusetts  one- 

sixtli  of  the  churches  and  in  Connecticut 
one-eightli  of  the  churches  gave  nothing  last 
year  (to  foreign  missions),  is  it  not  manifest 
that  something  needs  to  be  done  to  help  them 
regain  their  birthright  privilege  in  the  king¬ 
dom?  In  one  of  the  most  intelligent  and 
generous  States  of  the  country,  whose  aggre¬ 
gate  gift  to  the  American  Board  is  very  large, 
one  church  gave  an  annual  donation  of  one- 
tentli  of  a  cent  per  member;  another,  one- 
twelfth;  and  another  church  of  one  hundred 
and  eleven  members  gave  two  dollars,  or  at  the 


(5) 


rate  of  one  fifty-fifth  of  a  cent  per  member!” 
What  shall  these  facts,  dear  disciples  of  Jesus 
Christ,  move  us  to  do  in  the  year  of  grace 
before  us? 

We  notice  in  every  case  these  difficulties 
mentioned  indicate  a  lack, — a  lack  of  informa¬ 
tion  ;  a  lack  of  whole-hearted  consecration ;  a 
lack  of  the  spirit  of  self-forgetful  love.  Would  it 
not  seem,  then,  that  to  supply  this  lack  should 
be  our  unceasing  endeavor,  the  one  end  toward 
which  all  methods  should  converge?  Nothing 
should  be  counted  useless  or  trivial  which  adds, 
directly  or  indirectly,  one  particle  of  light,  or 
warmth,  or  love  to  even  one  woman’s  mission¬ 
ary  purpose  and  zeal.  .We  cannot  emphasize 
this  too  strongly,  or  say  it  too  often  to  our¬ 
selves  and  others,  in  days  when  we  see  little 
result  of  faithful  and  long-continued  effort. 
“  Despise  not  the  day  of  small  things,”  is  a 
word  of  Divine,  not  human,  teaching.  We 
heed  it  in  all  other  relations  of  life.  Why  not 
in  this? 

We  need,  also,  to  dwell  humbly  and  repeat¬ 
edly  upon  the  truth  that  we — you  and  I — 
cannot  kindle  this  flame  of  sacred  love  for 
missions  in  the  heart  of  any  woman;  more 
than  that,  we  cannot  very  much  increase  it,  or 
make  it  a  steady,  beneficent  glow,  at  which  the 
hearts  of  chill  and  suffering  women  far  away 
shall  be  warmed.  Three  things,  however,  we 
can  and  must  do  if  we  are  obedient  to  oui 
Lord’s  command:  “Go  ye,  therefore,”  and 

(6) 


would  carry  His  message,  “The  Master  is 
^ome  and  calleth  for  tliee,”  to  any  unrespon¬ 
sive  heart.  We  can  seek  to  awaken  a  desire 
for  knowledge,  and  to  supply  means  of  obtain¬ 
ing  that  knowledge.  We  can  seek  to  be  our¬ 
selves  so  filled  with  the  spirit  of  Christ  that 
we  may  be  personally  winning  to  these  whom 
we  seek  to  ally  with  us,  and  we  can  pray  much 
for  the  vivifying  breath  of  the  Holy  Spirit 
upon  their  hearts.  If  we  comply  with  these 
conditions,  shall  we  not  be  made  glad  again 
and  again  by  finding  that  God  has  honored 
our  faith,  and  that  the  very  women  we  hesi¬ 
tated  to  ask  are  ready,  aye,  and  waiting,  to 
have  a  part  in  our  beloved  work? 

Some  one — Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  was  it 
not? — has  said  that  the  education  of  a  child 
should  begin  a  hundred  years  before  he  is 
born.  So  the  training  of  an  auxiliary  must 

begin  in  the  cradles  of  its  leaders,  or  before. 

% 

Choose  carefully  your  auxiliary  officers; 
much  depends  upon  them.  It  is  better  to 
have  a  winning,  tactful  woman,  provided  al¬ 
ways  that  she  has  a  genuine  love  for  missions, 
even  if  she  may  not  be  conversant  with  the 
history  of  all  the  mission  fields.  That  she 
can  learn,  but  no  one  can  acquire  tact.  An 
auxiliary  president  should,  have  a  firm  grasp 
upon  all  the  details  of  the  work.  She  should 
keep  her  finger  upon  the  pulse  of  the  treasury, 
and  strive  to  come  into  personal  touch  with  as 
many  of  the  members  as  possible.  For  fos- 


(7) 


tering  this  interest  a  meeting  of  the  auxiliary 
officers  for  prayer  and  conference,  monthly, 
has  been  found  invaluable. 

But  now  that  our  auxiliary  is  officered,  the 
next  thing  is  to  have  a  meeting.  An  auxiliary 
without  a  meeting  is  like  a  rose  without  per¬ 
fume:  it  may  be  a  good  thing  in  its  way,  it 
may  be  the  only  thing  possible  under  the 
circumstances,  but  it  is  not  complete.  A 
Home  Roll  may  be  used  for  invalid  ladies,  or 
busy  house  mothers  who  say  truly  that  they 
cannot  attend  meetings,  and  they  may  be 
made  to  feel  that  they  belong  to  the  society 
by  a  Missionary  Book  Club,  which  shall 
circulate  leaflets  and  Life  and  Light. 

But  for  active  members  we  beg  for  some 
kind  of  a  meeting  .regularly  held.  And  one  of 
the  first  concerns  must  be  to  find  a  suitable 
place  for  the  meeting.  In  the  city  the  natural, 
and,  doubtless,  the  fitting  place,  is  the  church 
parlor.  In  scattered  communities  the  meeting 
is  oftener  held  at  the  parsonage  or  in  some 
other  home.  Usually  it  occurs  in  the  same 
place  month  after  month,  and,  as  was  said  the 
other  day,  “the  same  faithful  old  stand-bys 
attend.”  A  wise  plan  lias  been  tried  in  one 
or  two  instances  of  holding  neighborhood 
meetings ;  that  is,  going  from  one  part  of  the 
town  to  another.  Real  benefit  might  come  to 
the  work  in  such  places,  if  some  winning 
woman  should  succeed  in  getting  permission 
to  hold  the  meeting  in  a  home  where  the 


(8) 


ladies  do  not  usually  come  to  missionary 
meeting. 

Let  the  matter  be  well  “talked  up,”  and  the 
neighbors  urged  to  come  in.  Then  when  the 
afternoon  has  arrived,  some  friend  who  has  a 
carriage  at  her  command  is  pressed  into  the 
service.  She  calls  for  several  interested 
women  living  at  a  distance,  and  the  result  is 
that  new  faces  are  seen  at  this  auxiliary  meet¬ 
ing.  The  next  month  repeat  the  experiment 
in  another  district,  and  while  the  average  atten¬ 
dance  may  not  be  larger,  the  number  of  people 
reached  during  the  year  will  surprise  you. 

These  afternoon  meetings  may  be  varied  by 
an  occasional  evening  meeting,  to  which  the 
gentlemen  are  invited,  and  some  specially 
attractive  feature  added  to  the  programme. 

In  a  village  where  there  are  several  churches 
a  visiting  afternoon  is  sometimes  tried,  and  a 
whole  auxiliary  goes  a  visiting  its  neighbor 
society.  Another  society  has  a  pleasant  fashion 
of  remembering  sick  members  with  a  few 
flowers  or  a  little  leaflet  sent  directly  from  the 
meeting.  Sometimes  a  “calling  afternoon” 
is  substituted  for  the  regular  meeting.  The 
ladies  come  together  as  usual,  prayer  is  offered, 
asking  that  the  service  of  the  afternoon  may 
be  blessed,  and  then  the  ladies  separate,  each 
calling  upon  some  one  who  is  not  able,  or  not 
interested  to  attend  the  meeting,  and  seeking, 
with  love  and  tact,  to  interest  her  in  mission¬ 
ary  service. 


(9) 


Many  societies  have  received  a  blessing  by  a 
missionary  reception  given  by  the  young  ladies 
of  the  church  to  the  auxiliary  and  friends. 
This  reception  should  be,  so  far  as  possible,  ar¬ 
ranged  with  the  same  care  that  any  ordinary 
reception  demands ;  personal  invitations  should 
be  written,  and  everything  done  in  honor  of 
the  guests  of  the  afternoon,  but  the  lliission- 
ary  cause  should  be  the  chief  thought  of  the 
hour,  and  should  be  suggested  in  every  possi¬ 
ble  way.  By  the  way,  this  matter  of  personal 
notes  of  invitation,  though  by  no  means  new, 
is  one  worthy  of  much  emphasis.  Be  willing 
to  give  lavishly  and  to  expect  small  returns. 
One  lady  told  me  that  if  she  wrote  twenty 
notes  of  invitation  to  a  meeting,  and  saw  four 
ladies  present  as  a  result  of  those  notes,  she 
felt  amply  repaid.  But  let  us  not  think  our 
work  accomplished  when  the  friend  for  whom 
we  have  been  working  comes  once  to  our 
meeting.  Very  likely  if  we  rest  there,  the 
time  of  the  next  meeting  will  slip  by  and  she 
will  not  even  think  of  it.  Can  we  not  secure  her 
further  interest  by  asking  her  to  help  us  in 
some  little  way  at  our  next  meeting  ?  Aim  to 
have  as  many  ladies  take  part  in  the  meetings 
as  possible,  and,  believe  me,  when  you  have 
impressed  upon  your  friend  that  you  really 
need  her  presence  and  help,  you  have  often 
won  her. 

Of  course  each  part  must  necessarily  be 
brief,  in  this  plan,  but  would  not  that  in^itself 

(10) 


be  a  gain?  Do  we  not  often  make  a  mistake 
in  thinking  people  know  all  about  the  subject 
in  which  we  are  so  deeply  interested?  Do  we 
not  fail  to  have  our  programme  simple  enough? 
It  is  encouraging  to  know  that,  month  by 
month,  the  demand  for  the  lesson  leaflets  and 
for  the  other  literature  published  by  the 
Woman’s  Board  is  increasing.  Sometimes  it 
is  well  to  have  a  meeting  devoted  to  one 
special  missionary,  with  whom  the  ladies  have 
become  acquainted  through  the  blessed  Prayer 
Calendar,  or  through  her  picture  in  the  new 
album  of  missionaries  just  issued  by  the 
Woman’s  Board.  If  through  these  and  other 
methods  we  are  able  to  stimulate  interest,  and 
to  enlarge  the  store  of  knowledge,  a  more  gen¬ 
erous  and  systematic  giving  must  follow; 
while,  oh,  the  new  gladness  that  will  come  to 
hearts  that  thus  enter  into  the  joy  of  their 
Lord !  But  the  thought  that  above  all  else  we 
need  to  emphasize,  as  we  now  enter  upon  the 
“Jordan  of  our  difficulties,”  is  that  of  the 
wonderful  possibilities  with  which  God  in¬ 
trusts  us  in  the  matter  of  believing  prayer. 
If  as  we  meet,  month  by  month,  each  woman 
would  dare  to  utter  but  one  single  petition, 
think  how  there  would  sweep  up  before  the 
throne  of  grace  a  great  wave  of  intercessory 
prayer.  It  is  possible,  in  our  auxiliary  work, 
to  love,  to  plan  wisely,  to  give,  to  learn,  to 
grow  in  knowledge  and  in  grace;  but  first  of 
all,  last  of  all,  and  in  the  midst  of  all,  let  us 


(ID 


remember  it  is  possible  for  us  who  have  not 
gifts  of  gold  or  eloquence,  or  brilliant  mental 
endowments,  to  pray,  and  pray ,  and  pray 
again,  until  the  place  shall  be  shaken;  until 
there  shall  come  upon  us  a  power  for  service 
which  shall  subdue  all  difficulties,  and  gladden 
the  hearts  of  all  who  love  the  triumph  of 
Christ’s  kingdom — both  here  and  “unto  the 
uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.” 


(12) 


